For a series that smashes sales records year-on-year without breaking a sweat, the latest Call of Duty game could have played it safe. But thankfully, Black Ops 2 tries something new, from its all-new near-future setting to its branching campaign and some superb new multiplayer features, all while offering those same over-the-top, blockbuster kicks we've come to expect.

There are a number of ideas that attempt to make the campaign more open-ended and choice-driven than a typical narrow Call of Duty campaign, some of which work better than others.

The least successful - and unfortunately the most intrusive - are Strike Force missions. Dotted throughout the campaign, these are strategy-oriented objectives where you command drones and soldiers from an overhead viewpoint, leading them to capture checkpoints on board a tanker, or to defend a convoy as it snakes its way through a desert.

The idea is certainly an interesting one, but it swiftly falls apart within minutes of getting started. The action is too hectic to micro-manage three or four unit types at once, and since units aren't capable enough to tackle objectives properly on their own - or smart enough to make their way to objectives themselves after spawning into the map - you'll want to spend as much time as possible personally controlling individual units from the familiar first-person viewpoint to get the job done yourself.

Thankfully, missions can be easily completed this way, using the multiple units at your disposal as extra lives to slowly but surely get the job done. It's far from ideal, and it's particularly disappointing to see such an interesting idea go to waste, but otherwise you're fighting a series of slow and responsive systems.

Finishing them, however, influences how the story plays out, which is arguably Black Ops 2's biggest success.

Successfully completing Strike Force missions, or even regular objectives in the main campaign, will nudge future events in different directions. Vague examples include letting a suspect escape, who will return later to wreck havoc, or using information obtained from an interrogation to provide valuable information later.

It works so well because the branching directions the story goes in are both overt and subtle. Some are obvious, designated choices with clear consequences, while others are based on your mission performance or the swiftness in completing a goal.

The end result is a narrative that feels dynamic and shaped around your actions, and concludes with a number of ending possibilities that makes it difficult to know what direction they could take for a possible sequel.

Outside of a branching narrative, the story itself jumps from the latter stages of the Cold War through to the impending cyber warfare of the not-so-distant future of 2025, with circumstances bridged together by Mason's son, a retired and wheelchair-bound Woods and a villain that holds a grudge after several decades.

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Like previous Call of Duty campaigns, it's crammed full of plot twists, silly set pieces and baffling revelations, but it does a neat job of offering a more personal and character-driven story, and packs in an entertaining rollercoaster ride in the process.

The way the narrative is handed in Black Ops 2 is a genuine success, and isn't the only means of offering replayability in the campaign. Individual missions offer the chance to take in custom load-outs and perks, and when combined with new in-mission challenges and high scores posted to leaderboards, there's a number of real incentives to play again outside of the usual runthrough on a higher difficulty.

When it comes to gameplay itself, the gunplay beats of moving out of cover and popping shots remains entirely intact. And as with previous Call of Duty campaigns, it's excellently paced, jam-packed with some spectacular vehicular sequences, from riding a horse into the path of charging tanks, or flying a jet past collapsing skyscrapers.

The near-future setting offers flying drones, ceiling turrets and walking battle tanks as new stumbling blocks as you move from objective to objective, and the occasional splash of futuristic tech - from cloaked enemies that require special scopes to observe, through to sniper rifles that can blast through walls - to play with, adding a spot of variance.

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While fancy new gadgets like these are unfortunately an occasional treat rather than a core part of your equipment, it perhaps serves a greater good of not making the campaign too heavily driven by gimmicks.

Multiplayer doesn't rely on these futuristic elements too much either, but that's not to say it doesn't have its own fair share of changes, all of which feel smartly implemented.

Call of Duty multiplayer has always been focused on customisation, and Black Ops 2 takes that a step further with the 'Pick Ten' system, allowing you to equip ten items of your choosing, whether it's weapons, grenades or perks.

The system gives you the room to drop features you don't use - such as secondary grenades, for example - and put them into an extra attachment instead. And if you have a handful of choices left over, you can enable a 'Wildcard' to bend the system so you can equip two perks from the same category.

It allows players to better choose the weapons and perks that best suit their playstyle, and thanks to the limitation of ten choices, restricts the most radical and potentially game-breaking load-outs while still offering a wider degree of freedom.

There's also a lot of tweaks that make for a smarter, more approachable multiplayer suite. Choosing to Prestige no longer wipes stats, so you can keep playing to earn and unlock content; the excellent set of Party Modes from Black Ops, such as 'One in the Chamber' now provide experience, and Combat Training now merges bots with real players for actual matches, providing the perfect venue to practice the new maps and still rank up before jumping into the core playlists proper.

Elsewhere, the introduction of YouTube live streaming and League Play allows players to take competition to a more serious level. They're both features whose usefulness and reach will be determined in the weeks and months following release, but at the least the game can be commended at attempting to bring the intimidating world of eSports to the masses.

When it comes to playing multiplayer, it adopts the same moment-to-moment feel as previous games, with that same tight feel and rapid pace you've come to expect.

Interestingly, while there are a host of new, futuristic streak rewards - from microwave emitters that repel enemy advances through to drone strikes - unlike Modern Warfare 3 streak progress is once again reset upon dying, and since it now seems easier to destroy UAVs and other rewards, their impact in battle feels less prevalent.

As a result, multiplayer generally isn't littered with as many random and unfair deaths, making it feel a little more stripped-back and back-to-basics, which is certainly a welcome move.

Maps, meanwhile, are superbly designed and, along with the campaign, offer an array of stunning and diverse locales, which comes as a relief following the droll, rubble-filled arenas of Modern Warfare 3.

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Finally, Zombies mode returns with a more grander scale and a new array of features. Closed-off areas are now linked together with a rickety bus, multiplayer is expanded to eight people and a new 'Grief' mode that adds a competitive element when surviving against other players.

Despite the changes, in practice Zombies is still a love-it-or-hate-it experience, with its oddball humour, science-fiction setting and challenging one-life nature that feels heavily at odds with the rest of the package. The introduction of an Easy mode at least makes it more accessible, and its more inter-connected nature makes it a more mysterious package than before.

Not everything new that Black Ops 2 introduces is a success, but what works - from the branching narrative to more flexible multiplayer customisation - makes it the most unique Call of Duty yet.

It's a pleasure to see a franchise that's often derided for being linear and stuck in its ways attempt to evolve and change, suggesting that Call of Duty's lofty place at the top isn't being taken for granted.